One Upmanship – Bernie Madoff vs Ramalinga Raju

Scene: Bernie Madoff and Ramalinga Raju are put in the same jail, for crimes of similar essence – defrauding shareholders/investors. Both wanted to prove that one was better than the other – in swindling. And so began the argument -

Madoff: You bloody brown fellow! How dare you steal thunder under/from me?

Raju: You racist cheater! How long do you want to be in the limelight? Forever?

Madoff: Why did they put you here after all? I mean, what greater crime did you commit than me?

Raju: I defrauded, actually made fun and fool of atleast a billion people into believing that I was building the next IT behemoth. What did you do?

Madoff: You are just talking about Indians and a bunch of Wall Street Americans who have invested in your ADRs. I have defrauded, again, made fun and fool of millions of people across continents – US, Europe, Asia to quote a few.

Raju: That is nothing! My company was one of the SWITCH of India (Satyam, Wipro, Infy, TCS, Cognizant and HCL). We were believed to take over the outsourcing world. Haha, I have left India Inc. with a WITCH now. That should settle it.

Madoff: Not so soon you brownie, although that’s an insult to the food item itself! I defrauded banks and other investors to the tune of $50 billion. What was the little amount that you cheated people with?

Raju: You can’t understand the Indian measuring system, do you, you imbecile?! I defrauded the investors with a much greater amount than you did. 8000 crore is the amount – translating to 80 billion – a much greater number than you.

Madoff: You moron, you can’t understand the simple conversion of Rupee to Dollar. How did you ever become the Chairman of a company?

Raju: You couldn’t pay up little money in a ponzi scheme. How come they made you NASDAQ chairman once? How come they all considered you to be one of the makers in Wall Street?

Madoff: That’s because I was cheating them for a little over 48 years dude and I became one of the most powerful people on Wallstreet! They had to watch their words very carefully. Between, how many years were you cheating a billion people, which I admit is quite a huge number?

Raju: Haha, thanks! Well, publicly, its been about 8 years but before that we hardly had any revenue to cheat. Between, I appreciate that you had the talent to cheat people for 48 years. Awesome!

Madoff: Now that we have mutual appreciation and admiration for each other, how did you get caught?

Raju: Well, I technically misstated the accounts, showing more revenue than what was coming in. You know, all that ‘doing business on a cost basis’ funda. However, I and my dear family members made a lot of money (wink, wink).

Madoff: And then?

Raju: Then, I had to cover the tracks of this cheating or give money to my sons in Maytas, I forget which. But all hell broke loose in the US simply because I was transferring 7000 crore of fictional money to my son’s company. And then, Merill Lynch pulled out citing some esoteric ‘material accounting irregularities’ which I never understood. I wrote a letter to my dear employees, who in fact, worked like dogs for me that I cheated them happily, actually, screwed them happily for close to 8 years. What happened in your case?

Madoff: Well, my conscience pricked. I confessed.

Raju: Haha, that’s a very good joke! I can’t stop laughing.

Madoff: Haha (high-five) The jury and the media couldn’t make this out at all (high-five). You are indeed very sharp.

Raju: Haha, thanks. What happened?

Madoff: Well, with this stupid sub-prime crisis, some morons in Europe asked for money which I didn’t have. And then, everything blew up.

Raju: Well, we both have one thing in common

Madoff: What is that?

Raju: We both had auditors who hadn’t done their homework or classwork.

Madoff: Bunch of idiots. What do they know anyway? Sarabanes-Oxley – WTF is that? Losers!

Raju: Haha, fun, fun, fun. Now, let’s just get a bail and get the hell out of here tomorrow.

Madoff: And cheat more people…hahahah!

Raju: (high-five) hahahah!

And so the saga ended. Madoff and Raju from a mode of one-upmanship had transformed into partners-for-the-next-fraud over a conversation in the jail.

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